Monthly Archives: April 2010

I will warn you that there are NO pictures from my visit to The Dogwood restaurant in Hampden. However, if there were photos, you would see mostly senior citizens in the background.

Jeremy and I realized that we have the same eating schedules as most grandparents. We’re hungry early and we want to eat, dammit.

So for our 3-year anniversary, we wanted to try something new. Since we’re both vegetarians now (I can’t express how thrilled I am that Jeremy converted) – we wanted to go somewhere that offered more than 1 vegetarian entree… because sharing your meal is a part of the fun. Hello?

The Dogwood was also appealing to me because of their “mission” (taken directly from their website):

Food

With a respect for classical technique and a love of straightforward food, The Dogwood lets the ingredients sing with its Sustainable American Cuisine.

We cook with the seasons and feature the finest local and natural ingredients, sourcing from sustainable, artisanal, and organic producers whenever possible.

The Dogwood is community gourmet. We develop relationships and opportunity by preparing, learning about, and sharing outstanding food and wine (and our knowledge about them).

I also learned, after the fact, their “social mission” is to “transform lives one plate at a time by providing training opportunity and paid employment to individuals who are transitioning from addiction, incarceration, homelessness, and/or underemployment.” Someone said the idea of that might have freaked them out – but I didn’t even realize. Every staff member that approached our table was fabulous and friendly.

It was all very good. Jeremy was starving because he apparently skipped lunch so he devoured everything. I had a few bits as well. They also brought out Irish Soda Bread. I’d never had that before either and it was awesome.

I ate the “forbidden” rice risotto and it was frickin’ awesome. I believe it was vegan as well. Fresh vegetables, delicious and light… oh, so good.

Jeremy also really enjoyed his Spring Pea dish. I liked it but it was A LOT of cheese. As a person who doesn’t eat a lot of cheese, I appreciate it in small doses. Don’t get me wrong – it was still marvelous.

I also ordered a glass of wine. They had a special going on for 20% off bottles of Pinot Noir and normally I would have jumped all over it but we had a bottle of wine to drink at home (that super special bottle). So… I just got a glass. I picked this wine from their menu because it was under the section “Different (Which We Love)”:

One good thing came out of the Snowstorm of the Century that hit Baltimore in February. It cancelled Jeremy’s class last night so we COULD go to dinner! Although one consequence is that he has a final exam on SATURDAY NIGHT. Ew.

I came home from work to this:

Flowers, sour patch candy and toblerone. Perfect.

And I loved his card:

I'm a sucker for a picture of dogs.

This is funny because it is SO true... and it happens both ways.

Anywho – as much crap as I give my husband about not being very romantic (not that I ooze romantic myself), I have to give him credit on being creative and thoughtful.

For our first anniversary, he instituted a tradition. The tradition goes as follows:

bake a specific cake. Jeremy invented his OWN cake recipe. Granted it is comprised of pieces from different cake recipes but still. If I tried to invent my own cake recipe, it would taste like poop. This cake tastes like magic. It’s a cake with chocolate chips, a raspberry filling and a magical chocolate and fluffy buttercream frosting.

drink a bottle of wine. This is not just any wine. Jeremy, one our one year anniversary, picked up a case of a pinot noir. So every year, we drink a bottle of the same type of wine (all purchased in 2008) and take note of how the wine has changed each year.

Write in journal. This journal was intended to write about how the wine has changed but I thought it was boring. So on top of the wine notes, we write down what we did to celebrate our anniversary and then highlights from the year. It sounds corny but it was kind of cool to read how we celebrated last year (apparently the weekend was filled with a friend’s wedding and taking Petie to the vet).

Well, we did all of those things and we also dined at The Dogwood. Last year we went to Ixia and LOVED it. We had even deemed it our anniversary restaurant but sadly it closed down. Apparently we should have deemed it our “let’s go all the time” restaurant to help it stay afloat.

For gifts we opted to register for a Motorcycle Basic Rider Safety course. That’s right – we’re learning how to ride motorcycles (and potentially get licensed). Unfortunately these courses are crazy popular so we won’t be attending until August. And if you follow the traditional wedding gifts by year – year 3 is leather. I guess motorcycles are kind of related to leather, right?

Takes care of the crap I don’t want to take care of… like finances and vacation booking

Converted to a vegetarian diet because I was such a nut about animal welfare

Puts up with my crazy

Is able to cook ridiculously delicious meals

Supports me in all of my decisions including (but not limited to):

Triathlon – getting up at the butt crack of dawn and hanging around ALL day to snap pictures and cheer me on

Marathon – cooking pancakes for me after my long training runs, calming me when I cried through my injury and running all over Philly to make sure he caught up with me on the course

Is good at everything he does – like running a half marathon without any training and still running it faster than I could ever hope to run it

Still loves me even when I vomit all over his car and on our bedroom floor after a night of binge drinking

Okay – the list could go ON and ON and ON… but these were the highlights from the last year.

While sometimes I feel like time is flying by – I’m feeling more and more like “we’ve only been married for 3 years?” And I don’t mean that in a negative way – I mean that in the “I feel like I’ve been with you my entire life” love kind of way.

Then I remembered his short lived Bravo show Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style. In his show – he talked about the 10 essential wardrobe items every woman should own. A 10-item checklist? I can start with that:

Basic Black Dress

Trench Coat

Classic Dress Pants

Skirt

Blazer

Classic White Shirt

Day Dress

Cashmere Sweater

Jeans

Sweatsuit Alternative

Bonus: One Indulgent Trendy Item Under $20

I own the majority of these items except for a Cashmere sweater (that I’ll never buy because I’m a vegetarian) and a trench coat.

I think, however, that I need to step up the classic dress pants, classic white shirt and a blazer. I have blazers but I think I need a good go to blazer that works with the majority of my items.

As for classic white shirt – I need a good, crisp white button up shirt. Preferably one that is stain resistant and doesn’t require ironing. :-)

Oprah featured a white, non-iron shirt, last year that I’ve been meaning to get. Its a bit pricey but it seems well worth it if I don’t have to iron. I have difficulty with getting button up dress shirts to appear crisp. (I am the world’s worst ironer)

Last week I did my first adult thing… I went to a professional conference ALONE. If any of you follow my tweets, you’ll know that I was incredibly nervous about venturing out alone and schmoozing.

Well, I survived. And as dumb as it sounds – I feel more grown up.

I took a workshop titled, “The Power to Persuade and Influence without Authority”. While it sounds a wee bit corny – I actually learned a lot.

One of the things that stood out to me was the idea of conveying a perceived authority. The quickest way to do this is by your clothing since a first impression is important. This includes:

Name brands – people look at logos! And apparently the fancier and well-known a label/logo, the more important you appear.

Jewelry

Neat appearance – ironed, lint-free, well-coordinated clothing

Shoes – polished and professional

This idea isn’t exactly ground-breaking. We judge people all the time! You don’t? Okay, I do!

I work in an environment that is “business casual”. And some people take the casual part very seriously. I have let my work clothes go and have summed up my look as “soccer mom”. I wear a lot of khakis and flats.

However, this course just reiterated that old adage that you should dress for the job you want and not necessarily the one you have. I think if I want to be taken more seriously or at least have a chance to climb up the corporate ladder — I need to step up my game.

I need a serious overhaul of shoes. I’m a total klutz and a lot of my shoes are really scuffed. However, I don’t wear leather. Can I tell you how hard it is to find cute, professional shoes that aren’t made of leather? The one I’m struggling the most with is a pair of nude leather pumps!

I want these… in a NON-leather material:

I feel like I’m chasing after a damn unicorn or something. I found some camel/nude color kitten heels at Target. They looked nice online but cheap and flimsy in person. Ugh.

I also decided to use one of my more structured bags to carry my work crap in (planner, folders, etc.). It is an old Coach tote (before I decided to nix leather) and since brands carry a lot of weight – I figured it couldn’t hurt. Despite the Coach bag being a little stained and scuffed, I am always peppered with compliments anytime I break it out. This probably just reiterates the fact that people notice brands.

I made a shift today into a more professional outfit and was instantly asked if I was interviewing for a new position today. Good sign?

We’ll see. And now I have another reason to shop! I’m looking for new shoes and a nice trenchcoat. Any suggestions of where I can find a not crazy expensive but still nice trench?

The evening is almost over and as I gazed lovingly into my dog Petie’s eyes while he tried to lick my face… I remembered that today is his birthday!

Petie is officially 13. That translates to 91 HUMAN years.

Holy hell!

He still acts like a puppy although we’ve noticed him hesitating to run up the flight of stairs… and don’t even get me started on thinking of him getting really old because I just can’t deal with the thought of THAT.

So here are some random pictures I pulled from my phone. If anyone were to ever steal my phone, they’d see a bajillion pictures of food and my dogs.

Petie gets bored when we play on the computer.

Petie loves to watch TV

It is really difficult to get Petie to sit still especially if he sees an animal on TV

Petie and Emily love to curl up around us in bed. While it can be super cute, it can get ridiculously hot and they do not hesitate to shove you our of their way.

I have recently found myself talking about television an obscene amount of time.

And I’ve realized that I watch way too much fucking TV.

Once upon a time, I had a life.

Now? My life is rule by my TV. And I definitely don’t watch it live anymore. I digitally record a TON of shows and spend hours after work unwinding by watching my shows… spend hours on the weekend watching shows… spend too much time talking about shows… UGH.

So I’m going to list all of the shows I currently DVR so that I can potentially shock myself out of watching so much damn TV (or perhaps start a lively dialog about any of the shows). Keep in mind that these are only the shows I’m currently watching. Bravo, Style and E! all have shows that have irregular seasons… (wow, I can’t believe I just typed that as though this makes my TV watching any more sane):

Amazing Race (CBS)

Ruby (Style)

Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane (Style)

Rachael Ray (ABC)

Oprah (NBC) – not all of her shows…

How I Met Your Mother (CBS)

The Big Bang Theory (CBS)

Accidentally on Purpose (CBS)

RuPaul’s Drag Race (Logo)

LOST (ABC) – I’m secretly happy this show is over so I can stop watching it

Glee (Fox)

Modern Family (ABC)

Cougartown (ABC)

Chuck (NBC)

Parenthood (NBC)

The Real Housewives of New York (I watch all of these… except for Orange County)